Manuscript ledger. [Georgia?], 28 February 1855 - 5 December 1864. Small 4to, 6 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. 32 pages with writing. String bound, with small leather fragment.

Provenance: A Georgia estate. 

An unusual and remarkable antebellum ledger maintained by a Southern slaveholder. Several pages are devoted to the systematic recording of seven enslaved women by name, together with the names and exact birthdates of their children. Elsewhere, the volume contains routine business entries (accounts of crop sales, income, and other transactions), placing the enslaved individuals in the same context as agricultural and financial records.

The birth records span more than two decades, beginning in 1842 and continuing through the Civil War, with the last entry dated 5 December 1864. Such documentation is exceedingly scarce; comparable records are more typically found in family Bibles or in probate inventories, and even then, seldom with this level of specificity. Legal documents of the period rarely preserve both names and precise birthdates. This ledger, therefore, provides a rare window into the lives of enslaved women and children while starkly illustrating the enslaver’s view of them as property, cataloged alongside crops and income.

A complete listing of each woman and her children is as follows: 

Eve, who had nine children: Stephen (4 January 1842), Ishmel (21 August 1845), Charles (18 October 1846), July (25 December 1848), Louis (14 October 1850), Riley (14 October 1852), Charles (died 1 April 1852, evidently a stillbirth), Evie (died 3 February 1854). 

Fanny, who had three children: Nancy (25 October 1848), Edward (25 January 1850), and Ewing (5 January 1852).

Rachel, who had five children: Jesse (17 February 1856); Mary (11 April 1858); Chaney (3 November 1860); Girza (?) (28 December 1862); Ben (14 November 1864).

Grace, who had three children: Lilna (2 January 1857); Elick (4  October 1859); Richard (unrecorded).

Jane, who had 2 children: Thomas (15 October 1859) and Larajane (13 May 1862)

Lally, who had one child: Lavinia (5 July 1861).

Nancy, who had one child: Ellen (5 December 1864).  

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]  [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]

No binding, leather remnant. While early pages are faded and soiled, the pages recording the women and their children are bright and clean.